C++ Primer Plus

The valarray Class: A Quick Look

The valarray class is supported by the valarray header file. As its name suggests, the class is targeted to deal with numeric values (or with classes with similar properties), so it supports operations such as summing the contents and finding the largest and smallest values in an array. So that it can handle different data types, valarray is defined as a template class. Later, this chapter goes into how to define template classes, but all you need to know now is how to use one.

The template aspect means that you have to provide a specific type when declaring an object. To do so when declaring an object, you follow the identifier valarray with angle brackets that contain the desired type:

valarray<int> q_values;     // ...